©The Policy Press, 2000 • ISSN 0305 5736
Policy & Politics  vol 28  no 1:33-48
Wim van Oorschot
With the recent reconstruction of welfare states the social protection of citizens has become more conditional and selective - the basic welfare question of'who should get what, and why' has come to the fore again.To understand the societal legitimation for the new conditionality of welfare it is important to know which deservingness criteria are acknowledged by the public and their relative importance; whether people differ in the degree to which their solidarity with others is conditional, and which groups in society tend to be most or least conditional in their views; and factors that might explain differences in people's views. Conclusion are drawn through the analysis of existing literature and a public opinion survey carried out in The Netherlands in 1995.The survey responses reveal some clear deservingness criteria and differences in conditionality, which can be linked to three different sets of explanatory variables: socioeconomic and demographic characteristics; opinions on and perceptions of social security and the welfare state; and basic values and attitudes.
:rancais
Lors cle la récente reconstruction des états providence, la protection sociale des citoyens est devenue plus CDnditionnelle et selective, et la question essentielle s'impose:"Qui a droit ä quoi, et pourquoiľ" Pour comprendre la justification sociale des nouvelles conditions de couverture sociale, il est important de savoir quels sont les critěres de mérite validés par le public, ainsi que leur importance relative ;si les individus varient en fonction du degré de leur solidarite les uns avec les autres, quels groupes sociaux ont tendance ä étre les plus ou moins conditionnels.et quels sont les facteurs qui pourraient expliquer ces di'Ťérences. Des conclusions ont été tirées ďune analyse de la documentation disponible et d'un sondage auprěs du public effectué aux Pays-Bas en 1995. Les réponses ä ce sondage révělent des critěres de mérite bien définis et des differences dans la 'conditionnalité' des individus, pouvant étre liées I. trois ensembles de variables: les caractéristiques socio-économiques et démographiques; les opinions et les perceptions au sujet de la couverture sociale et de ľ etat providence; et les valeurs et les attitudes fundamentales des individus.
Con la reciente reconstitución de los estados de bienestar, ia protección social de los ciudadanos se ha vuelto más selectiva y sujeta a más condicionamientos - las preguntas caracteristicas del estado social, es decir, quién debe recibir ayuda, qué es lo que debe recibir y porqué, han empezado a discutirse de nuevo. Para comprender la legitimidad social de las nuevas condiciones de las que depende la recepción de ayudas, es importante conocer cuáles son los criterios de merecimiento aceptados por los ciudadanos y su importancia correspondiente; si la gente difiere en el grado de condicionalidad, cuáles son los grupos sociales que tienden a establecer más o menos condiciones y los factores que explican las diferecia de opiniónes entre la población. Las conclusiones se han obtenido a partir del análisis de estudios ya existentes y de una encuesta entre la población de los Países Bajos realizz.da en 1995. Los resultados de la encuesta ponen de manifiesto la existencia de algunos criterios claros de selección de beneficiarios y revelan diferencias en cuanto a las condiciones mencionadas para la recepción de ayuda. Los respuestas obtenidas dependen de tres tipos distintos de variables: las caracteristicas socioeconómicas y demográficas; las opiniónes acerca de la seguridad social y del estado de bienestar; y los valores y actitudes elementales.
Final submission 21 April 1999 -Acceptance / May 1999
Wim van OorschotWho should get what, and why?
introduction
Welfare states are under reconstruction everywhere. In Western industrialised countries rethinking flowed from the economic and fiscal crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s, which led to demands for cutbacks in social expenditures. In Eastern European countries it came about as a result of political transformation, which required the redesign of social policies and institutions. A number of recent comparative welfare state studies show that national reconstruction processes share some common tendencies (see George and Taylor-Gooby, 1996; Ploug and Kvist, 1996; Daly, 1997). In many countries access to universal protection schemes has been limited; solidarity ties in social insurance schemes between good and bad risks and higher and lower incomes have been reduced; the role of means-testing has increased; welfare to work strategies have been implemented; and citizens' individual responsibilities have been stressed more explicitly. With these measures the collectively organised social protection of citizens has become less universal, more selective and conditional in many European countries. This new conditionality shows that nowadays, well after the fiscal crisis of the 1980s, policy makers are more preoccupied with the problem of the rationing of welfare than with the problem of getting it funded. It also indicates that their answer to the crucial welfare question of 'who should get what, and why' has changed drastically. For needy citizens it is no longer so easy to achieve the status of 'deserving of support' , as it was in the West during the prosperous 1970s or in the East under socialist ideology.
While the policy trend of an increasing conditional and selective rationing of welfare is clear there seems to be a paradox with regard to its societal legitimacy. On the one hand it looks as if the public at large agrees with it, since the reconstruction- measures generally do not seem to have met with open and strong societal resistance. Experts do warn against certain measures, interest groups raise their voice from time to time, but nowhere in Europe does the process of reconstruction lead to overt and fierce social conflict. On the other hand, however, there is the fact that in opinion surveys the European public repeatedly expresses its general preference for
collective and solidaristic welfare state arrangements (see Ferrera, 1993; Pettersen, 1995; Pious;, 1996; Van Oorschot et al, 1996; Abrahamsor, 1997). Whether the new conditionality has a so-cietally legitimate base or not, and on what values, attitudes and perceptions it is precisely grounded, is a crucial question if we are to understand its further development and viability. It is therefore a central question with regard to what the future character of our welfare states might be. An answer to this question would require detailed information on the public's opinions o:i specific conditional and selective welfare policies - information which is not available. Existing international comparative surveys, like the International Social Justice Project, the European and World Values Surveys, the International Social Survey Programme and the Eurobarometer surveys, do address relevant welfare state values and opinions, but at too general and superficial a level. Therefore, information on the criteria and conditions the public at large applies to the rationing of welfare would be very helpful to contribute to an understanding of this legitimacy of the new conditionality and selectivity.
More generally, knowledge of popular deserv-ingness criteria, or the public's answer to 'who should get what, and why?', would help policy makers to predict the likely legitimacy of any change in social aiTangements. For instance, if a majority of citizens were of the opinion that support in cash or care for people in need should depend on the extent to which they were to blame for their situation, cutbacks on benefits for widow(er)s would get less support than cutbacks on benefits for divorced people, and tightening access to work injury schemes would be less legitimate than tightening access to disability schemes in general. Interest groups might also profit from information about popular deserving -ness criteria, because it could help them choose the most appealing arguments for their case. Again, if the principle of control or blame is important among the public, single parents on social assistance could promote their interests by arguing that single parenthood is not really a deliberate choice.
From a sociological point of view, insight into prevailing deservingness criteria is interesting because it helps us to understand the character
34
Policy & Politics  vol 28   no I
and intensity of solidarity patterns between societal groups. It allows us not only to analyse what principles and norms people deem important when thinking about a just distribution of life chances in society, but also how strictly and strongly they tend to apply such principles and norms when it comes to helping those in need. There might be 'selectivists' and 'universalists', or 'conditional' and 'unconditional' solidarists, i.e. people who tend to apply a number of norms quite strictly and people who do not or to a lesser degree.
So, cuestions relevant to the legitimacy of welfare rationing are:
1. Which deservingness criteria are acknowledged by the public and what is their relative importance?
2. Do people differ in the degree to which their solidarity with others is conditional, and which groups in society tend to be most or least conditional in their views?
3. What factors might explain differences in people's conditional views on support for the needy?
To answer these questions the article presents a brief overview of existing research, deduces a number of deservingness criteria from it, and tests their empirical validity against data from a public opinion survey carried out in The Netherlands in 1995. In it people were asked, among other things, what level of collective financial protection they would prefer for a number of specified groups in society. Their answers reveal some clear deservingness criteria and differences in conditionality.
Early poor laws, like the British Poor Law of 1834 or the Dutch Armenwet of 1854, often implicitly or explicitly distinguished between those categories of poor people who were seen to be deserving of relief - aged, sick and infirm peo-dren, in short 'impotent poor' - and those
pie, chi
who were regarded as undeserving - unemployed
people,
Goldin
idle paupers, those capable of work (see y and Middleton, 1981; Katz, 1989). These distinctions still persist among the public at large, as was found by Coughlin (1980) and
Pettersen (1995) in their international comparative studies of opinion surveys on welfare state issues. Coughlin's conclusion that there was "a universal dimension of support" is corroborated by Pettersen. In modern, Western welfare states the public is most in favour of support for old people, followed by support for the sick and disabled, needy families with children and unemployed, while they least support people on social assistance. What interests us here is what lies beyond this dimension, ie what are the exact criteria of deservingness which underlie such categories and their relative order. Despite its relevance, detailed knowledge of popular deservingness criteria is lacking. Literature that goes beyond mentioning deserving and undeserving types and categories of poor people is scant, though not totally absent.
For instance, in his historical study on the development of modern welfare states, De Swaan (1988) describes three criteria which he found to have been present in almost all classifications of the deserving versus the undeserving poor: disability, proximity and docility. Disability refers to the incapacity to make a living through one's own efforts. According to this criterion, the undeserving are those people who could make a living on their own, if they only tried hard enough, ie people who have a certain control over their neediness. The deserving are those poor who lack such control. Of these three criteria de Swaan sees disability as the most important, since throughout the history of poor relief it has functioned as a necessary, though not always sufficient, condition.
The second criterion of proximity defines a social area of accountability. The deserving are those incapable poor who are in this area; the undeserving or the responsibility of others are those outside this area. According to De Swaan, the boundaries of the area may be defined by kinship relations, by place of residence, or more generally, by the boundaries of a certain identity-group, like 'our family', 'our town', 'our church', 'our people'. According to this general principle of in-group preference (Messe et al, 1986), the deserving are those poor people who belong to 'us'. In modem societies this criterion might result in an unwillingness to support needy people from ethnic minorities or foreign residents in general.
35
Wim van OorschotWho should get what, and why?
De Swaan's third criterion of docility refers to the degree of passivity with which the poor address the redistribution of life chances. The decent and embarrassed poor who hide their misery and ask for nothing are seen as deserving, while the undeserving are those needy who are seen to make impudent demands. The persistence of this type of norm was shown, for instance, by Knegt (1987) who observed how municipal social service officers in the Netherlands had developed an informal code, implying that compliant clients were treated more generously than demanding clients.
In her survey of American views on supporting the poor, Cook (1979) explicitly studied which characteristics of poor people influenced the preferences people had about the levels of support which should be provided. The deserv-ingness criteria she found were level of need, locus of responsibility, gratefulness and pleasantness. The level-of-need criterion simply means that people are willing to offer more support for those in greater need. Apart from level of need, locus of responsibility was the most important criterion. Support was generally higher for cases in which being in a needy situation was seen as beyond the control of the individual or household involved. Without the possibility of control, people cannot be held responsible and thus are seen as deserving. This criterion corresponds with De Swaan's disability criterion. The gratefulness criterion indicates that the inclination to support is higher towards those people in need who respond gratefully to help. This corresponds closely to De Swaan's criterion of docility. Both authors link this criterion to what seems to be a deeper criterion of reciprocity. Given the basic tendency of people to value reciprocity in social relations of giving and taking (Komter, 1996), and given the fact that the poor have little to offer, people are sensitive to recip-rocative substitutes. Examples of these are the smile of thanks, compliance and gratefulness, but also, in a modern context, actively looking for a job, or willingness to participate in a re-insertion programme. This reciprocity norm can easily be extended to situations in which the needy, not being able to reciprocate at the time, have earned support in earlier times. The norm would then imply higher support for older people than for younger people, since the first have already con-
tributed to society during their active years. The norm would also support higher benefits for the unemployed who paid higher amounts of contributions from their previous earnings. Cook's pleasantness criterion, derived from psychological experiments, holds that people we like and with whom we feel comfortable, usually get mors help. From a sociological perspective, this criterion might suggest that the willingness to support is higher in cases where the needy belong to 'us!, which would correspond with De Swaan's criterion of proximity.
Will's empirical study of public perceptions of the deserving poor in America shows that respondents clearly discriminated between factors and conditions faced by the poor in determining the levels of support poor families deserved (Will, 1993). The dominant criterion he found was the degree to which the problems facing poor families were beyond the immediate control c f the individual family. The characteristics 'which elicited the highest levels of generosity were large family composition, unemployment and physical disability. In addition, respondents indicated much more support for those persons who, despite hardship, were still actively working to help themselves get out of their difficulties.
Thus, the evidence on deservingness criteria suggests the following five dimensions:
1. control: poor people's control over their need -iness, or their responsibility for it: the less control, the more deserving;
2. need: the greater the level of need, the more deserving;
3. identity: the identity of the poor, ie their prox imity to the rich or their 'pleasantness'; the closer to 'us', the more deserving;
4. attitude: poor people's attitude towards sup port, or their docility or gratefulness: the mor compliant, the more deserving;
5. reciprocity: the degree of reciprocation by the poor, or having earned support: the more reciprocation, the more deserving1.
From these criteria we can understand what uri derlies people's preferences for supportin specific groups. For instance, we can understand why, as Coughlin and Pettersen found, the pub lie generally favours support for elderly peopl more than support for the unemployed. Reach
36
Policy & Politics vol 28  no I
ing pensionable age, and getting older, is not something people have much control over, while there is always doubt whether unemployment is a result of people's own passivity. Such doubt seems to be stronger in Anglo-Saxon individual-oriented countries like the UK, the US and Australia than in collectivity-oriented continental European countries (Feather, 1974; Feagin, 1975; EC, 1977). Elderly people generally will be seen more as belonging to 'us'. They are closer to the rich than the unemployed because we all have bonds with them (they are our parents) and we all üave a good chance of belonging to this category in the future. As for their attitudes towards support, elderly people are known to be undemanding, grateful and not rebellious, while situations in which the unemployed aggressively demand their rights in social service offices are highlighted in the media. (The unemployed man in Tilburg who crashed into the social services' front door with his Jaguar after having been denied a one-off payment received nationwide attention in The Netherlands.) Finally, in the public's eye, elderly people will be seen as having earned their right to be supported because of all the years of their active life in which they contributed to society, while the unemployed, especially the young among them, still have to prove their worth to society. In short, support for elderly people will generally be higher because the group 'scores higher' on all the criteria, with the possible exception of the level of need criterion, although even there, elderly people tend to have higher health-related needs.
The deservingness criteria are taken as a starting point for our empirical analysis. Given the universal character of the distinctions between deserving and undeserving categories of the poor, not only between countries as shown by Cough-lin, but apparently also over time as De Swaan suggests, it can be safely assumed that the significance of our analyses extends to the Dutch situation.
Method
The data are from the TISSER-Solidarity study, a national representative survey (N=1500) of the Dutch public of age 16 years and older, carried
out in the autumn of 1995. The survey was specifically designed to measure people's opinions, perceptions and attitudes regarding the welfare state in general, and the system of social security in particular. In relation to social security, questions were also put about re-insertion policies, the division of paid and unpaid work, and the rights and duties of unemployed people (see Van Oorschot, 1998 for a summary of the survey's full results).
Instruments Deservingness criteria
The data enabled us to operationalise the criteria of control, need, identity and reciprocity. No items were available for the attitude criterion. The basis for the Operationalisation is the following survey question put in the TIS S ER-solidarity study: 'If we cut back on benefits, the question of who has a greater or lesser right to financial support from society will become more important. We will mention a number of groups. Would you like to say to what degree each group, on a scale from 1 (no right at all) to 10 (complete right), should have a right to financial support from society?' . A total of 29 different groups were put to the respondents (see Appendix A for the groups and the average scores). The central idea of the analysis is that whether a specific deservingness criterion plays a role in people's opinions on the right to financial support is revealed by people's preferences regarding contrasting groups. If groups who on average contrast with each other on the criterion have the same score on the 1 to 10 generosity scale, the criterion then appears not to play any role. If, however, the average scores differ greatly, the criterion is clearly important in determining the levels of support and solidarity. On the basis of this reasoning we operationalised the different deservingness criteria by assigning contrasting groups to them from the 29 available. The results can be seen in Table 1. The identity criterion is operationalised in a very specific way in the sense that it is limited to ethnically based identities: 'foreigners' versus the overall average, indicating 'Dutch people in general'. This is due to the fact that no other identity indicators were available. In itself this limitation is not a serious shortcoming;, since in modem wel-
37
Wim van OorschotWho should get what, and why?
fare states it is mainly the national, rather than the local, religious, age group or professional group identity which forms the cultural legitimi-sation basis for collective, redistributive welfare arrangements (Offe, 1988). The averages for groups suggested that there might be another criterion, which we could call 'social risk'. It showed that groups of people who are apparently confronted with one of the broadly acknowledged social risks all have above average scores: sick people, disabled people, pensioners and widow(er)s. We have contrasted their scores with those of the 'social assistance beneficiaries', a group which in most social security systems functions as a residual category for people whose neediness cannot be attributed to one of the defined social risks. The social risk criterion thus holds that support will generally be higher for people whose neediness is due to having been confronted with one of the acknowledged modern social risks, than for people whose neediness cannot be clearly attributed to one of these risks.
Explanatory variables
While empirical research on deservingness criteria is scant, explanatory models of factors influencing whether and to what degree criteria are applied by the public simply do not exist. Rather than developing such a model, as we think that comparative material is not available, we would like to offer an exploratory view on which factors might be involved. From our data three distinct sets of relevant variables (presented in Appendix B) were identified. A distinction is made between personal characteristics, opinions and perceptions regarding the social security system, and general values and attitudes.
Results
Which deservingness criteria ore present and what is their relative importance!
This question can be addressed by using the information contained in Table 1, which shows the differences in average scores on the 1 to 10 scale for the pairs of contrasting groups.
Since the differences between averages are all significant, an initial conclusion is that the Dutch
public does differentiate between all of the contrasting groups involved. The difference between some contrast groups is relatively large. For instance, the public is very generous towards those who are not able to work (this group has an average of 7.6 on the 1 to 10 scale), and very reserved towards those who are not willing to work (an average score of only 2.3). This large difference of 5.3 points indicates that the issue of whether needy people are not able or not willing to work is an important criterion for the Dutch public in deciding about the degree to which the needy have a right to financial support from society. But there are also smaller differences between other contrasting groups, such as between people with a low and a high educational level.
That all differences between contrasting groups are significant implies that all the criteria play a role in people's preferences fo:r financial support towards the needy. In line with Cook's and Will's empirical findings in the US, discussed earlier, the most important of these criteria is control, since the average difference of 3.6 over the three constituting contrasts is the largest compared with the other four criteria. The second important criterion is identity, with an average difference of 2.27, and the third is reciprocity, with an average difference of 1.85. Less important criteria are the level of need (average of 1.31) and whether neediness is the result of having been confronted with a social risk (average of 1.35). So, the most important questions the Dutch public would ask when confronted with somebody who requests their support are: 'Why are you needy?', 'Are you one of us?' and 'What have you done, or can you do, for us?'
Whether they would always start with the same question and successively pose the others, in other words, whether there is a conditional hierarchy among the five criteria and what specific order it takes, cannot be deduced from our data. As we have seen, De Swaan suggests such a hierarchy when stating that his criterion of 'disability' is a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for people to support the poor. Although our data do not allow us to test this suggestion, the fact that the control criterion is the most important one does not contradict it.
With the results thus far one could predict for specific categories of needy people whether their
38
Policy & Politics vol 28  no I
laDBe I: Differences between the average scores on the S to 10 generosity scale for contrasting groups
ifferences between average scores*
Average difference over contrasts
Contro Not abl Disabled Weak health
3.60
to work - not willing to work
as a result of work — disabled as a result of own behaviour strong health
Pensioners - young people
Extended work history — short work history
Jobless people - people with a job
Single income - double income
Families with children - families without children
Beneficiaries with children - beneficiaries
without
Low education — high education
peopl
SocJa
Sick
Disabled
Pension
Widow
children
Average Average Average
e - social assistance people - social assistance -s - social assistance er)s — social assistance
ethnic minority groups
- asylum seekers
-  illegal foreigners
5.30 3.50 2.00
2.00 1.70
2.30 1.90 1.50 0.90
0.90
2.10 1.70 1.30 1.10
1.20 1.90 3.70
.85
1.3.
.35
2.27
Note: * all differences significant at the 5% level: the average score for each separate group is shown in van Oorschot, 1998.
request
for help would be welcomed or rejected.
There its of course a variety of types of needy groups, but the extremes can be sketched. On the welcoming side, there is the picture of a person who, beyond his/her own control and responsibility, and as a result of being confronted with a known social risk, is unable to satisfy the need by him/herself, who has previously contributed to the interests of the group from which he/she is asking for help, or who is able and willing to comply with possible requirements related to the support to be provided, whose needs are high and who shares the identity of the potential helpers. A sick or disabled pensioner, with seri-
ous needs due to his/her health problems, who has lived and worked all his/her life among the group whose help s/he now needs would come close to this extreme.
On the rejection side the picture is that of a needy person who is able but not really willing to get him/herself out of trouble, who has not contributed a great deal to the collectivity he or she is now begging for help, whose neediness is not that serious and who has an identity different from that of the potential helpers. Close to this extreme would come a young, single foreigner, who has just moved into the country and prefers living on benefit to doing paid work.
39
Wim van OorschotWho should get what, and why?
Conditionality of solidarity: selectivisin and universalism
Further analyses revealed that there are positive correlations between applying the distinctive criteria (Table 2). This indicates that there are 'selectivists' and 'universalists' among the public. That is, there are some groups of citizens who tend to apply more, or even all, of the criteria and other groups of citizens who apply fewer of the criteria, or none at all.
Table 2: Bivariate Pearson correlations between scores on deservlngness criteria (p < 0.000)
Reciprocity Need   Social risk    Identity
Control          0.32          0.43           0.25                 0.28
Reciprocity                      0.1 I           0.30                0.33
Need                                                  0.24           not sign.
Social risk                                                                  0.22
Who are these selectivists and universalists? Which groups in society tend to be more conditional in their views than other groups? And, what other welfare opinions and values relate to con-ditionality? To address these questions we constructed a measure of the degree of conditionally by adding respondents' scores on the various criteria . People with high scores on this conditionality scale (alpha reliability of 0.73) are more conditional in their views, while people with low scores are more unconditional. Table 3 shows the results of a linear regression analysis of the three sets of explanatory variables on this scale.
Personal characteristics
On examining the results regarding the set of personal characteristics, we see that conditionality is higher among older people, people with a lower educational level and a lower socioeconomic status (indicated by educational level and job level), and among voters on parties of the religious right, which in The Netherlands are mainly orthodox Protestants. By way of contrast, selectivity is less favoured by young people, those with a higher level of education and a high-
er socioeconomic status who do not vote for the religious right. We can understand these findings when we realise that the more educated, younger people with better jobs are not the citizens with the greatest likelihood of becoming needy. As such they have little to gain from a highly selective and conditional welfare system. Our interpretation therefore is that such better-off people imagine that they will only gain from a more universal, less conditional system in which social welfare policies are not restricted only to those who meet stringent criteria of deserving-ness. Older, low-skilled persons in lower level jobs, on the other hand, are in a more risky position, and might well prefer conditionality in order to prevent the social protection they might need in future being available to people who do not really need it. However, there could be an alternative explanation. Golding and Middleton (1982) found that those who were socioeconom-ically closest to beneficiaries and the poor had the strongest negative beliefs and feelings about these groups. Their explanation, that such people regard the poor as direct competitors for their own economic and cultural life chances and therefore develop strong negative feelings about them, would also suggest that the older, low-skilled worker would indeed be less sympathetic towards supporting needy groups.
Class variables
We also conclude from Table 3 that 'social division' or 'class' variables like income level and whether one is working or on benefit do not play a role in the conditionality of solidarity. We would also stress that other variables, such as educational level and socioeconomic status, have only a small influence. It is interesting that these results are common across a range of studies of welfare state opinions. In the TISSER-Solidari-ty study we found little or no influence of 'class' variables on other dependent variables, such as the types of motives people have for supporting collective welfare arrangements (such as self-interest, moral duty, fellow feeling or accepted authority; van Oorschot, 1997b), or the level of supportitself (van Oorschot, 1997a). Ploug found in his data on a variety of Danish opinions on the welfare state that"... there was very little variation in the answers given by different age and
40
Policy & Politics vol 28  no I
3: Factors Inf regression coefff
g the application of deservingness criteria* (standardized cients with sigT < ©„OS, method = stepwise)
Conditionaläty
Personal characteristics
Gender
Age
Education
Income
Socioeconomic status
Participation
employed
on benefit
pensioners
no work, no benefit Political preference
Christian democrats
social democrats
conservative liberals
strong Left
religious Right
progressive liberals
other
Opinions and perceptions Individual effects of social security Moral effects of social security Social effects of social security Economic effects of social security Misuse cf social security Self-interest in social security Level of benefits
Values
Interest
Work
Equality
Overall
and
eth
attitudes orientation
ic ethic upport
male
young
low
low
high
Proportion of explained variance(R2)
female
old
high
high
low
0.21 -0.10
0.10
0.07
negative	positive	
negative	positive	-0.10
negative	positive	
negative	positive	
low	high	0.11
disadvantageous	advantageous	
lower	higher	-0.12
self	others	
low	high	
low	high	
low	high	-0.16 20%
Note:* A linear regression on the set of personal characteristics separately yielded the same coefficients as regards their significance, direction and relative order, and showed a proportion of explained variance (R2) of I !%.The sets of cjpinions and values significantly add another 9% to the explanation of differences in conditionality.
socioeconomic groups" (1996: 6). Taylor-Goo-by (19§3) found that social division variables did not influence opinions on welfare spending in Britain! Aguilar and Gustafsson (1988) did not find a relationship between socioeconomic background! variables and Swedish opinions about social assistance levels. In all these examples opinions and attitudes have been analysed, and
it may therefore be, as Ploug suggests, that the lack of correlation between class variables and welfare state opinions is due to the fact that opinion data are less robust and more vulnerable to 'politically correct answering' than behaviour data. However, we tend to believe that a sociological explanation of the phenomenon is possible, in addition to the methodological one
Wim van OorschotWho should get what, and why?
suggested by Ploug (1996). Such an explanation bears on the possibility that people's opinions, values and ideologies have become more fragmented and less strictly tied to clearly delineated societal groups or classes, as a result of the different aspects of the ongoing processes of individualisation and societal differentiation (Beck et al, 1994, Harvey, 1989/1990). The process of individualisation not only implies that people increasingly make their personal choices from the plurality of cultural, religious and ideological values and norms that are present in postmodern societies, but also that people move more freely through society and its constituent groups. As a result of an ongoing differentiation of social structure, these groups themselves have become more obscure and less well marked. In other words, in an individualistic, pluralistic and differentiated society one would not expect opinions and attitudes to correlate strongly with objective group or class boundaries. On the contrary, one would expect them to be fragmented over classes and groups, which was what was in effect found in the longitudinal European Values Survey (De Moor, 1995).
That there is no difference in conditionality between workers and people on benefit may also be explained structurally, by pointing to the dynamics of belonging to each of the groups. Incorporating time in unemployment and poverty studies has shown that in many cases it is a mistake to assume that there are clear and permanent boundaries between poor and non-poor, employed or unemployed, working people or people on benefits. On the contrary, evidence repeatedly shows that over a period of years there is an enormous movement of people entering and leaving these groups (Walker, 1994; Leisering and Walker, 1998). If one assumes, which it is reasonable to do, that people do not change their opinions, perceptions, values and attitudes overnight, each time they change their position in society, then one would expect, just as we found, little or no differences between workers and people on benefit. If we furthermore assume that it is not only people's personal experiences as workers or as beneficiaries which influence their opinions, perceptions, attitudes and values regarding social security and the welfare state, but also those of the people who are near to them, such as household members and friends, then
there is an even broader base for understanding why there is little or no difference between the views of workers and beneficiaries.
Opinions and perceptions
As for opinions and perceptions, we see that conditionality is more marked among those who believe strongly that social security support has negative effects on people's morality. These are people who believe that, as a result of social security support, people tend to get lazy, become less responsible, more egoistic and less willing to take care of each other, and divorce more readily. It seems that it is the possible negative moral effect upon the poor themselves which makes some people hesitate to support the needy, rather than any concern about the possible positive effects on the individual (who might enjoy a happier life and more opportunities to make something of it), the positive social effects (of a more stable and just society), or the possible negative economic effects (higher labour costs with higher unemployment). What these people seem to fear is a 'moral hazard' or a soil of 'moral poverty trap': by giving needy people financial support, their behaviour and attitudes change i:n a way which makes them even more dependent.
Conditionality is also higher among those who have less faith in the fair functioning of the system, who perceive a higher degree of benefit fraud. Although separate from the moral effects variable, this finding also suggests that a certain fear of or distrust in the moral standards of ths poor plays a significant role in (some) people's readiness to support them. If true, it might explain why the control criterion is important, why support generally is higher if neediness is not seen as being the responsibility of the needy themselves. In these circumstances people can be more certain that they are not being cheated or deceived by the poor.
Furthermore, conditionality is higher among those who think benefit levels should be cut back to lower levels. Not only are these people of the opinion that benefits are too high and generous, but they also believe that access to them should depend on proof of deservingness.
42
Policy & Politics vol 28.  no I
Values and attitudes
Table 3 shows for values and attitudes that the level of overall support influences conditionali-ty. Those who are basically less supportive towards the needy tend to be more conditional. From such people, a person in need will not only tend to get less help, but the help will also be given less freely, ie only after a number of criteria are met. A second finding is that the other attitudes listed have no influence: whether people are primarily self-interested or interested in others, whether they have a high or a low work ethic, or favour income equality or not. Conditionally does not go along with, as we expected, a strong self-interest, a high work ethic and a low equality ethic. We derived such expectations from previous analyses of our data, in which the dependent variable was not people's preference for the rationing of welfare support, but whether they had altruistic reasons for contributing to welfare in the first place by paying social premiums and taxes, reasons based on identification with the needy and moral convictions (Van Oor-schot, 1997b). From that analysis we saw that such altruism was stronger among those with a general other-directedness, those with a high equality ethic and those with a lower work ethic. These outcomes suggest that, for understanding citizens' support for welfare policies, it is important to distinguish between their support for what they are expected to offer as (financial) inputs to the system, and what they regard as just rules or criteria for redistributing the total sum of contributions. In fact, analysis showed that there is only a small Pearson correlation of-0.10 (p > 0.0001) between willingness to pay for welfare and conditionality.
Dutch pjeople applied a number of deservingness criteria í when asked to rate 29 different groups on a 1 to 10 financial support scale. The most important among these criteria are control, identity and reciprocity. That is, when confronted with somebody asking for their support the Dutch public is likely to ask first: 'Why are you needy?', 'Are you one of us?' and 'What have you done, or can you do, for us?'. That control was the strongest criterion among these three confirms
the results from American empirical studies, as well as the theoretical propositions of de Swaan in his study on the historical development of (state) social policy. Whether people in need can be blamed or can be held responsible for their neediness seems to be a general and central criterion for deservingness.
From the results it was also possible to understand the favourable position of elderly people compared to that of unemployed people on Coughlin's 'universal dimension of support'.
It showed that some members of the public apply certain of the different deservingness criteria more strongly. Such 'selectivists' have a more conditional solidarity with the needy than the 'universalists'. The selectivist tends to be an older person with a low level of education and a low-level job who votes for the religious right, and is also a person who believes that social security has a bad moral effect on people, who thinks that benefits are too high and widely misused, and who typically is not very generous. The universalist tends to be a younger, highly educated person with a good job who does not believe that social security support makes people more lazy or less caring or that people widely misuse the system, and who tends to have a more generous attitude.
The dynamics of exclusion (poverty and unemployment) and the fact that people are influenced by the position and experiences of those who are close to them, might explain why workers are not more conditional than people on benefit.
As in other studies, little or no correlation was found between social class variables and welfare state opinions. This might be explained by the fact that such opinions could be vulnerable to 'politically correct answering'. But it could also be explained by the fragmentation of opinions and values, as well as the fading away of rigid class boundaries, both of which are features of an individualising, pluralistic and differentiated postmodern society.
Finally, our findings indicate that people's preferences for the rationing of welfare are independent of the reasons why they are willing to pay for welfare. This suggests that welfare state solidarity is not a simple, unidimensional concept. At present, much of the empirical research on solidarity is dominated by an approach in
43
Wim van OorschotWho should get what, and why?
which solidarity is seen as the degree to which people are willing to pay for (various types of) social expenditure. To understand welfare state solidarity patterns, however, issues of motivation and preference for rationing rules are just as important, particularly when we realise that the current restructuring of welfare states seems to be more concerned with the way in which welfare is redistributed (more market-led, more selective), rather than with the degree to which it is paid for (Ferge, 1997).
Knowledge of deservingness criteria prevailing among the public can therefore add to our understanding of the legitimacy of the welfare state of the future and of the de facto solidarity links it produces among new generations, professional groups and social classes. Although this article offered a systematic empirical contribution to such knowledge, more comparative data, over time and place, will be necessary to complete the picture.
Note
1 Piven and Clo ward (1972) argued that welfare redistribution may function as a way of preventing social disorder, ie of 'regulating the poor' (see also Simmel, 1908). We recognise this 'fear of social disorder' as a possible motivation for the rationing of welfare, but do not regard it as a deservingness criterion as such. (Potentially) rebellious poor may be feared and therefore be given support, but they will hardly be seen as deserving.
References
Abrahamson, P. (1997) 'Combating poverty and social exclusion in Europe', in W. Beck, L. van der Maesen and A. Walker (eds) The social quality of Europe, The Hague: Kluwer Law International/Bristol: The Policy Press.
Aguilar, R. and Gustafsson, B. (1988) 'Public opinion about social assistance in Sweden', European Journal of Political Research, vol 16: 251-76, Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Beck, U., Giddens, A. and Lash, S. (1994) Reflexive modernization: Politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Cook, F. (1979) Who should be helped: Public support for social sendees, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
Coughlin, R.M. (1980) Ideology, public opinion and welfare policy: Attitudes towards taxes and spending in industrial societies, Institute of International Studies, Research Series No 42, Berkeley, CA: University of California.
Daly, M. (1997) 'Welfare states underpressure: cash benefits in European welfare states', Journal of European Social Policy, vol 7, no 2: 129-46.
De Moor, R. (ed) (1995) Values in Western societies, Tilburg: Tilburg University Press.
De Swaan, (1988) In care of the state, Amsterdam: Bakker.
EC (European Commission) (1977) The perception of poverty in Europe, Brussels:
EC.
Feagin, J. (1975) Subordinating the poor: Welfare and American beliefs, Eaglewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Feather, N.T. (1974) 'Explanations of poverty in Australian and American samples', Australian Journal of Psychology, vol 26, no 3: 199-216.
Ferge, S. (1997) 'A Central European perspective on the social quality of Europe', in W. Beck, L. van der Maesen and A. Walker (eds) The social quality of Europe, The Hague: Kluwer Law International/Bristol: The Policy Press.
Ferrera, M. (1993) EC Citizens and social protection, Pavia: University of Pavia.
George, V. and Taylor-Gooby, P. (1996) European welfare policy: Squaring the welfare circle, London: Macmillan.
Golding, P. and Middleton, S. (1981) Images of welfare, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Harvey, D. (1989/90) The condition of post modernity, Oxford: Blackwell.
Katz, M. (1989) The undeserving poor: From the war on poverty to the war on welfare, New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
44
Policy & Politics vol 28  no I
Knegt, JR. (1987) 'Rule application and substantive justice: observation at a Public Assistance Bureau', The Netherlands' Journal of Sociology, vol 23, no 2, October: 116-25.
Komtei;, A. (1996) The gift: An interdisciplinary perspective, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Leisering, L. and Walker, R. (eds) (1998) The dynamics of modern society, Bristol: The Policy Press.
Messé, L., Hymes, R. and MacCoun, R. (1986) 'Group categorization and distributive justice decisions', in H.W. Bierhoff, R. Cohen and J. Greenberg (eds) Justice in social relations, New ]York, NY/London: Plenum Press.
Offe, Cj. (1988) 'Democracy against the welfare state'', in J. Moon (ed) Responsibility, rights and Welfare, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Pettersen, P.A. (1995) 'The welfare state: the security dimension', in O. Borre and E. Scarbrough (eds) The scope of government, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pi ven, F. and Cloward, R. (1972) Regulating the poor: The functions of public welfare, London: Tavistock.
Ploug, N. (1996) 'The welfare state: consistent attitudes in a changing world', Paper presented at the ISA RC 19th Annual Meeting, Canberra, Australia, 19-23 August.
Ploug, N. and Kvist, J. (eds.) (1997) Social security in Europe: Development or dismantlement?, The Hague: Kluwer Law International.
Simmel, G. (1908) Soziologie: Untersuchungen
über die formen der Vergesellschaftung,
Leipzig: Von Dunker und Humbolt. I Taylor-Gooby, P. (1983) 'Legitimation deficit,
public opinion and the welfare state', Sociology, vól 17, no 2: 165-84. í van Oorschot, W. (1996) Nederland over
sociale zekerheid en arbeid: Eerste resultaten
i
van e'en uitgebreid onderzoek naar de publieke opinie, WORC-report 96.12.0072/2, Tilburg: Tilburg University.
van Oorschot, W. (1997a) Rechten, pachten en bijdragen: Een meetinstrument voor het draagvlak van solidariteit in de sociale zekerheid, Research Papers, Utrecht: Research Centre for Work, Wellbeing and Socioeconomic Policy (AWSB).
van Oorschot, W. (1997b) Calculatie, moraal en affectie: Een empirische exploratie van motieven voor de legitimiteit van solidariteit in de sociale zekerheid en defactoren die daarop van invloed zijn, Working Paper 97/ 03, Utrecht: AWSB.
van Oorschot, W. (1998) Dutch public opinion on social security: A descriptive summary of survey results, Loughborough: Centre for Research in Social Policy, Loughborough University.
van Oorschot, W., Boos, C. and Gelijnse, L. (1996) Solidair of selectief?, Deventer: Kluwer/Sovac.
Walker, R. (1994) Poverty dynamics: Issues and examples, Aldershot: Avebury.
Will, J. (1993) 'The dimensions of poverty: public perceptions of the deserving poor', Social Science Research, no 22: 312—32.
45
Wim van OorschotWho should get what, and why?
tppe
ndix
scale
iioras on right to financial ss 3 right, !0=absolute right)
Right to financial support
specifies
lean score
overall mean (5.6)
People disabled as a result of their work
Sick people
People not able to work
Disabled people
People with poor health
People with an extended work history
Pensioners
Single mothers on assistance
Households with children
Widow(er)s
Heads of a family
Jobless people
People with low educational level
Social assistance beneficiaries
Single people
Students (overall mean)
Households on a single income
People with a short work history
Households without children
People with high educational level
People with good health
Young people
Ethnic mirrority groups
People disabled as a result of their own behaviour
People with a job
Asylum seekers
Two-income households
People who are not willing to work
Illegal foreigners
7.7 7.6 7.3 7.0 7.0 6.9 6.8 6.8 6.7 6.2 6.1 6.0 5.9 5.9 5.6 5.4 5.3 5.3 5.1 5.0 4.9 4.7 4.6 3.8 3.7 3.5 2.3
+2.5 +2.1 +2.0 + 1.7 + 1.4 + 1.4 + 1.3 + 1.2 + 1.2 + 1.1 +0.6 +0.5 +0.4 +0.3 +0.3 0.0 -0.2 -0.3 -0.3 -0.5 -0.6 -0.7 -0.9 -1.0 -1.8 -1.9 -2.1 -3.3 -3.7
Appendix B: Explanatory variables
Personal characteristics Gender Age
Educational level Income level
Socioeconomic status (educational level x profession)
Participation position (working, on benefit, not working and not on benefit, pensioners) Political preference (which party one would vote for if there were to be an election next week)
Opinions and perceptions
Individual effects of social security: alpha=0.64, m=2.2, sd=0.55, range= 1-3
Opinion on the effects of social security on individuals: negative — positive
The system of social security can have positive and negative effects. Do you think that the system has the following effects? Because of social security:
(I =yes;2=to some extent;3=no)
a. the life of many people is more pleasant and free
b. the Dutch population at large is happier
c. everybody gets a chance to make something of his or her life
Policy & Politics vol 28  no I
Moral effects of social security: alpha=0.67, m=2.0, sd=0.54, range=l-5
Opinion on the moral effects of the system of social security: negative - positive
The system of social security can have positive and negative effects. Do you think that the system has the following effects? Because of social security:
(l=very disadvantageous; 2-disadvantageous; 3=on balance; 4=advantageous; 5=very advantageous)
a. people get lazy
b. people's sense of self-responsibility decreases
c. people get egoistic and calculating
d.  people divorce too easily
e. people do not want to take care of each other any more
Social effects of social security: alpha=0.67, m=2.2, sd=0.55, range= 1-3 Opinion on the effects of social security on society: negative — positive
The system of social security can have positive and negative effects. Do you think that the system has the following effects? Because of social security: (l=yes;2=to some extent;3=no)
a. societal unrest is prevented
b. large-scale poverty and misery is prevented
c. there is a more just distribution of life chances
Economic effects of social security: alpha=0.65, m=2.0, sd=0.55, range=l-3
Opinion on the economic effects of social security: negative - positive
Trie system of social security can have positive and negative effects. Do you think that the system has the following effects? Because of social security:
(l=yes;2=to some extent; 3=no)
a. Holland can compete less with other countries
b. labour costs are too high
c. unemployment increases
Misuse df social security: alpha=0.72, m=2.4, sd=0.48, range=l—3 How frequently do people misuse: (l=never; 2=now and then; 3=often)
a. disability benefit
b. sickness benefit
c. social assistance
d. unemployment benefit
Self-interest in social security: alpha=0.72, m=2.9, sd=0.85, range= 1-5 Do you think that on balance social security is advantageous for you, or disadvantageous: (I =very disadvantageous; 2=disadvantageous; 3=on balance; 4=advantageous; 5=very advantageous)
a. at this moment of your life
b. over the whole of your life
Level of benefits: alpha=0.7l, m=3.0, sd=0.54, range= 1-5
Opinion on whether benefit levels should be decreased or increased
If it was up to you, would you increase or decrease the level of benefits, or would you keep them as they are now? Take note ofthe fact that an increase in benefit levels results in higher taxes and contributions, and that a decrease in benefit levels results in lower taxes and contributions.
(l=strongly decrease; 2=decrease; 3=no change; 4-increase; 5=strongly increase)
a. unemployment benefit
b.  social assistance
c. minimum benefits in general
47
Wim van OorschotWho should get what, and why?
Values and attštudes
Interest orientation: alpha=Q.72, rr\=23, sd=0.49, range= 1-5
Basic attitude in life: generally directed at ones own interests or at the interests of others
Answers to statements:
(l=strongly agree; 2=agree; 3=neither agree nor disagree; 4=disagree; 5=strongly disagree)
a. solidarity is nonsense, everybody has to take care of himself
b. in life you have to follow your own plans not bothered by others
c. mostly I put my own interests first in stead of those of others
d. I enjoy it doing other people a pleasure
e. if I do something for someone else, I want something in return f I never think of the interests of other people
g. I easily get interested on behalf of other people
Work ethic: alpha=0.69, m=3.6, sd=0.74, range= 1-5 Answers to statements: (l=strongly disagree; 2=disagree; 3=neither agree nor disagree; 4=agree; 5=strongly agree)
a. work is a duty towards society
b.  you can do as you please after having done your duties
c. work has to come first always even if it means less free time
Equality ethic: alpha=0.62, m=3.1, sd=0.64, range= I -5 General attitude towards levelling of the income distribution Answers to the questions:
a. Do you regard the inequality between incomes in Holland at this moment to be very large-large-neither large nor small-small-very small?
b. Would you like have a larger-equal-smaller inequality between incomes?
c. Do you regard the inequality between benefits and incomes in Holland at this moment to be very large-large-neither large nor small-small-very small?
b.Would you like have a larger—equal—smaller inequality between benefits and incomes?
Overall support: m=5.6 People's general level of generosity towards people in need Mean score over all specified groups on the I to 10 scale in Table I
Wim van Oorschot
Department of Social Security Studies
Tilburg University
The Netherlands
48
©The Policy Press, 2002 • ISSN 0305 5736
Policy & Politics  vol 30  no I 31-46
Wim van Oorschot Abstract
Starting from the observation that very little is known about what exactly motivates people to pay for welfare benefits, the article deduces four types of motivation from sociological theories on solidarity: perceived self-interest, moral obligation, empathy and identification with others, and accepted authority. In a national survey among the Dutch adult population in 1995 respondents were asked to what degree the first three motives for contributing to social security apply in their case.The main conclusions are that a large majority of the Dutch are motivated to pay for welfare on several grounds at the same time; the motive of self-interest plays the most important role, followed by moral obligations and then empathy; older people, men and the highest educated are more strongly motivated to contribute to social security, while welfare use and income level only have a modest influence.The main patterns can be understood from the encompassing character of the Dutch social security system, from which (nearly) all Dutch citizens and/or their family members and close friends profit personally.
Tan^ais
En partant de I'observation que ľon connaít trěs mal les raisons pour lesquelles les gens payent des cotisations sociales, cet article extrait quatre types de motivations des theories socioiogiques sur la solidarite: intérét personnel reconnu, obligation morale,affection et identification aux autres,acceptation d'autorite. Lors d'un sondage national au sein de la population adulte hollandaise en 1995, on demandait aux personnes interrogées jusqu'ä quel point les trois premiers motifs pour payer les cotisations sociales étaient valables pour elles. Les conclusions principales sont que la grande majorite est motivée pour payer des cotisations sociales pour différentes raisons ä la fois. Ľintérét personnel joue un grand rôle,ensuite les obligations morales et enfin ['affection. Les personnes d'age můr, les hommes et les plus instruits sont les plus motives tandis que l'utilisation des services sociaux et le niveau des revenus sont des facteurs peu importants. Les schémas principaux se comprennent ä la lumiěre de la nature trěs complete du systéme de sécurité sociale hollandaise dont presque touš les Hollandais et/ ou leurs families profitent personnellement.
Empezando con el hecho de que no se sabe mucho acerca de lo que motiva a la gente a que contribuya a la asistencia social, este articulo deduce cuatro tipos de motivación de teorías sociales en cuanto a ia solidar|idad:propio interes percibido.obligación moral,afecto e identificación con otros.y aceptación de la autoridad. En una encuesta a nivel nacionál entre la población adulta danesa en 1995, se les preguntó a los encuestados hasta que punto los tres primeros motivos eran relevantes en sus casos para contribuir a la seguridad social. Las principales conclusiones fueron que la gran mayoria estaba motivada a contribuir con la asistencia social por varios motivos al mismo tiempo; el motivo de interes fjropio juega un papel importante, seguido de obligaciones morales y afecto; la gente mayor, los hombres y la gente con mayor educación fueron quienes estaban más motivados a contribuir con la segurijjad social, mientras que quienes usan los beneficios y sólo un nivel de ingresos no tienen mucha irjifiuencia. Los principales modelos se pueden entender por el carácter del sistema de la seguridad social danesa en la cual casi todos los ciudadanos daneses y/o los miembros de sus familias y amigosi se benefician personalmente.
Final submission 22 January 2001 -Acceptance 31 January 2001
Wim van Oorschot: Individual motives for contributing to welfare benefits in the Netherlands
What motivates people to pay for welfare schemes is largely unknown, theoretically, as well as empirically. This is demonstrated by three facts.
First, a typical contradiction exists between theoretical expectations and empirical findings about whether people are motivated to contribute to welfare schemes at all. The basic message of theories in the field is that most citizens of developed welfare states, ie the middle and higher classes, are not positively motivated and even oppose paying for welfare schemes. Such theories, which warn us of a crisis in the legitimacy of the welfare state due to falling popular support, date back to the 1970s and are still around. Rose arid Peters (1978) claimed that support for welfare would fall to the degree that wage earners would experience a drop in real disposable income due to economic recession and rising welfare demand. The 'abused taxpayer' would ultimately refuse to contribute. Crozier et al (1975) feared a growing ungovernability of the welfare state due to 'rising expectations', ie when the operations of democratic processes would lead to an overload of demands on government, exceeding its capacity to respond. And Wilen-sky (1975) argued that the new 'middle mass', resulting from the ongoing differentiation of labour and social life and driven by economic individualism, would oppose paying for welfare, since they would perceive lesser or no benefits from it. This 'middle mass' argument is still repeated regularly, eg in terms of the 'comfortable majority' who are reluctant to extend the welfare gained for itself to the minority of the poor (Galbraith, 1992), or in terms of the 'one-third/ two-thirds society' concept of Leisering and Leibfried (1998). From a cultural point of view Zijderveld (1979) argued that the comprehensive welfare state contributed to an immoralistic ethos among its citizens, where everybody tries to benefit much and contribute little, leading to a morally corrupting and economically unsustainable situation. And Inglehart (1977) posited the growth of post-materialistic values among postwar generations, stressing the quality of life instead of material aspects of economic and physical welfare state protection, to which he later added that welfare states have reached a point of
'diminishing returns', leading to withdrawal of popular support (Inglehart, 1990). Recently a new argument has been introduced from the debate on 'risk society', holding that 'manufactured uncertainty' reaches across all social groups, while at the same time people have become móre suspicious of government's capability for offering solutions (Beck, 1986; Giddens, 1994; Beck, Giddens and Lash, 1994). These alarming theories stand, however, in clear contrast to empirical findings from the 1970s onwards, which show that most people do support welfare. A dip occurred generally in the recessive 1980s, but even then it was "... simply nonsense to speak of a crisis of legitimacy" (Ringen, 1987: 63). More recently, Pierson (1991) concludes from several public opinion studies that "There is little evidence ... of large-scale popular backlash against the welfare state" (p 171), while Pettersen (199b), comparing trends in various European countries on the basis of various data sets, concludes that "... there is no evidence that welfare states, or specific welfare programs, are generally losing support over time..." (p 229). Similar conclusions are drawn in the comparative studies of Ferrera (1993), Ploug (1996) and Abrahamson (1997). Clearly, theories that suggest that most people would (increasingly) oppose paying for welfare, while empirical findings point to the contrary, give evidence of a general lack of understanding of people's motivations.
Second, theoretical studies that acknowledge that people might be positively motivated usually distinguish between two types of motivation only: interests and values. For instance, Kangas (1997) and Lindenberg (1990) speak in t|ds respect of 'homo economicus' and 'homo sociologies' models, Taylor-Gooby (1999) of ' 'instrumental rationality' versus 'normative' behaviour, Elster (1990) of 'selfishness' versus 'altruism' and Mansbridge (1990) of 'self-intbr-esť versus 'love and duty'. All agree that people might be motivated to contribute to welfare on the basis of both types of considerations at the same time, and that social contexts condition type and strength of motivations. However, general sociological theories about people's motivations to contribute to the common good suggest that there might be more than just these two types (van Oorschot and Komter, 1998).
Third, empirical studies that explicitly address
32
Policy & Politics vol 30 no I
the motivations that people may have to pay for welfare schemes have only measured them indirectly. They usually deduce the prevalence of certain motivations of the specific influence on welfare support from 'interest indicators' like age, household type, income and class position, and 'value indicators' like egalitarianism, left-right preferences, individualism, social ideologies and a range of welfare attitudes (see Coughlin, 1980; and Peillon, 1995 for reviews of such empirical studies). The problem with this is, however, that indirect measurement makes it impossible to assess adequately the relative importance of motivational types and to analyse the structural and cultural determinants of people's motivational mixes. We know of no empirical study that directly asked people exactly what it is that motivates them to support welfare.
This article aims at contributing to a better theoretical and empirical understanding of peo-ple's motivations for supporting welfare schemes. It will discuss sociological theories on social solidarity and derive four types of motivation from them, hypotheses will be formulated on the determinants of peoples' motivations, and the results of a Dutch survey will be presented, in which respondents were asked explicitly about their reasons for paying for welfare schemes, particularly social security benefits. The latter restricts the scope of our study, but we believe that this is not a serious drawback, given the as yet limited understanding of motivations for any welfare support and the fact that social security in many countries is at the centre of the welfare system.
Motives for supporting welfare schenftes
The various motives people may have to support wejlfare schemes can be derived from sociological theories on social solidarity, since these are concerned with the question why and under v|hich conditions people are willing to contribujte to the common good, that is, to let collective interests prevail, even when this would conflict jwith their personal interests.
Durkrieim ([1893] 1966) and Weber (in Henderson and Parsons, 1964) perceive social solidarity as a state of relations between individuals and groups enabling collective interests
to be served. The essence of and basis for such relations is that people have or experience a common fate, either because they share identity as members of the same collectivity and therefore feel a mutual sense of belonging and responsibility, which is the central idea in Durkheim's conception of mechanic solidarity and Weber's 'communal' type of relations of solidarit}', or because they share utility, in the sense that people need each other to realise their life opportunities, which refers to social bonds of a type described by Durkheim as organic solidarity and as 'associative' relations of solidarity by Weber. The scope and strength of solidarity in a social system is a function of such shared identities and utilities, because they form the basis from which people are motivated to contribute. Several types of motives exist. The role of people's feelings and sentiments in this respect is stressed by May-hew (1971). In his view, the degree to which people feel attracted to one another and are loyal at the micro level, and the degree to which they perceive a collective identity and we-feel-ing at the meso level, are decisive for their willingness to contribute to the common good. A second motive for solidarity, figuring explicitly in the solidarity theories of Durkheim ([1893] 1966) and Parsons (1951), depends on culturally based convictions, which imply that the individual feels a moral obligation to serve the collective interest. Enlightened self-interest can be a third motive for solidarity. It is central in Hechter's (1987) rational choice-based approach to solidarity and it underlies Durkheim's organic solidarity in a modern differentiated society, where people learn that they benefit from contributing to the collective interest (if not immediately then in the long run). The motive is also the basis for Weber's associative relationship, in which people agree to help one another, either by exchanging goods or services or by cooperating to achieve a common goal. Clearly, solidarity does not need to be grounded in warm feelings of love and duty; it can be based on a rational calculation. Those who argue that the legitimacy of the modern welfare state mainly stems from the fact that the middle and higher classes profit most from it, implicitly refer to this type of motive (see for example Baldwin, 1990; Esping-Andersen, 1990; Goodin and Le Grand, 1987). Fourth, support for solidarity is not nec-
33
Wim van Oorschot: Individual motives for contributing to welfare benefits in the Netherlands
essarily spontaneous, or completely voluntary. According to Parsons (1951) contributing to the collective interest is an act of solidarity only if it results from institutional role obligations. In Hechter's theory enforcement figures even more explicitly. Free-riding necessitates coercion to and control of contributions to the common good. Empirically, one can imagine situations in which the first three motives - empathy and identification, moral conviction, self-interest - fail to provide sufficient support for solidarity. For instance, the identification with other group members may be low, moral obligations may be perceived as unrealistic or unjust, and people may not have or perceive a strong personal interest in the group's revenues. In such cases solidarity will not be supported spontaneously, making enforcement by a higher authority necessary. This can be the group, the neighbourhood or the public exercising social control, but in many fields of modern society it will be the state. Enforced solidarity can only be stable in the long run if it is legitimised. Of course it can be legitimised by the motives mentioned earlier, but under discussion here is a situation in which they are not sufficiently strong. The remaining possibility is that the authority has a legitimacy of itself. For instance, obligations to behave solidaristically, imposed upon citizens by the state, can be perceived as legitimate because the state is itself seen as a legitimate authority.
To conclude, the legitimacy of relations of solidarity will generally be stronger to the degree that: such relations link up with existing patterns of mutual empathy and identification; they correspond with relevant moral convictions and perceived duties being in force; they correspond to the (long-term) self-interest of individuals and groups involved; and to the degree that they are backed by a more legitimate authoritative body. Solidaristic relations and arrangements that are legitimate on the grounds of all four motives are likely to be the strongest (see also Ferge, 2000). Consequently, welfare arrangements and institutions, which serve the collective interest of modern societies, have a stronger legitimacy to the degree that more people are motivated to contribute to the arrangements, and people have a wider range of motives to contribute. Furthermore, to a certain extent, a positive correlation might usually be expected
between the various types of motivation people have for solidaristic behaviour. This is because people tend to be most dependent on those collectivities they belong to, implying that shared identities and shared utilities tend to go together.
Hypotheses
In the following it will be analysed to what degree the Dutch population is motivated by tlie various motives to support welfare, particularly to pay for social security benefits, whether there are individual differences and, if so, what factors determine an individual's motivational pattern. Two sets of explanatory factors are distinguished. One is a set of personal characteristics: sex, age, educational level, income level and welfare use (whether people receive a social security benefit or not), and another is a set of variables indicating people's opinions, perceptions and attitudes regarding the welfare state in general, and social security in particular.
With respect to sex one could assume that women are more strongly motivated to support welfare schemes because there is some empirical evidence that generally they favour welfare more than men (Deitch, 1988). Explanations for this might be found in cultural differences, in the sense that women might adhere more to values of caring and mutual responsibility (Deitch, 1988), which would imply that they agree more with motives concerning moral conviction arid affection. But they might also agree more on tlje motive of self-interest. This is because women are supposed to profit more from welfare schemes generally than men, because they enhance their self-sufficiency and labour market chances (Hemes, 1987; Erie and Rein, 1988;). This might be true generally, but in the Netherlands, where social security rights have become strongly connected to labour market performance (van Oorschot, 1999), the situation might be dijf-ferent. The labour market participation of Dutqh women is relatively low and most working women work part-time, which offers them relatively less income protection than men. That Dutch childcare facilities are grossly inadequate (den Dulk et al, 1999) might be another factor which makes Dutch women perceive less benefits from welfare schemes, as they might in other comparable countries.
34
Policy & Politics vol 30  no I
As for \age, it might be expected that younger people are less motivated to contribute. One could argue that social protection is less significant for them personally, because they will have lower chances generally of encountering social risks like sickness and disability, and old age is still far ajway. Many of them might not have responsibilities towards spouses and children yet, and younger people have invested less in the welfare system than older people (see also Svall-fors, 1989). There might also be cultural differences which make young people agree less with the motives of moral obligation and affectioni Dutch younger people are more 'post-materialistic' in Inglehart's terms (van Deth, 1984), arid this attitude is expected to correlate with less welfare support (Pettersen, 1995). Furthermore, among Dutch young people a shift has occuijred towards more rightist political preferences, with the accompanying values of individual responsibility and stronger anti-welfare sentiment (Ter Bogt and van Praag, 1992).
With regard to educational level, expectations are contradictory. On the one hand, one would assume tliat people with a higher educational level would be less motivated to pay for benefit schemes, since generally their chances on the social risks of unemployment, sickness and disability are smaller. They will also have higher incomes, implying greater opportunities to provide for I themselves - two reasons why they might feel to be 'abused taxpayers' (Rose and Peters, 1978). Furthermore, there are more 'post-materialists' among people with a higher education and, if such an attitude correlates with higher anti-welfare sentiment (as Pettersen, 1995 suggests j, then this would be another argument to expect more highly educated people to be less motivated, to pay for welfare. On the other hand, due to their higher education they may have developed a clearer understanding of the functional and moral necessity of contributing to the common good. Ganzenboom (1988) speaks in this respect of the higher degree of 'moral enlightenment' of tjhe more highly educated, and Hasenfeld and Rafférty (1989) argue that formal education evokes a greater commitment to social equality and social rights.
With regard to income level, expectations are rather straightforward. One would expect that those with lower incomes perceive a higher in-
terest in the welfare state, and would therefore be more willing to contribute to it. Among those with higher incomes the reverse can be expected. However, this income difference might be smaller in countries like the Netherlands, with an encompassing social security system, than in those with a more residual system. In the former even people with high incomes might profit strongly from welfare in general, if not more than people with lower incomes (which, according to Muffels et al, 1986 and SCP, 1994, is actually the case in the Netherlands).
Also, welfare use can be expected to be a clearly decisive variable: those on benefit will perceive more clearly than those not on benefit all of the various reasons to pay for welfare. Again in the Netherlands, however, differences might not be that large, since benefit dependency is a reality close to the personal lives of many Dutch people. No less than 92% of the Dutch either have received social security benefits in the past themselves, are receiving a benefit now, expect to be dependent on them in future, and/or have family members or close friends who are claiming one at present (van Oorschot, 1997; included here are unemployment insurance and assistance, sickness benefit and disability benefit).
In order to explore further possible determinants of people's motives for contributing to social security, a number of welfare-relevant opinions, perceptions and attitudes are included. Such variables might have a direct effect on the motivational pattern of individuals, but they can also play a mediating role in the total influence of personal characteristics. Generally it can be expected that people with a more negative view of the character and consequences of the social security system will be less motivated to contribute to it. In particular we expect less motivation among those who:
° evaluate the social security system more negatively;
e perceive individual, social, moral and economic effects of social security more negatively or less positively;
<"  would prefer benefit levels to be lower;
• perceive actual benefit levels as adequate for beneficiaries;
35
Wim van Oorschot: individual motives for contributing to welfare benefits in the Netherlands
e have a less positive attitude towards income solidarity, ie the principle that higher incomes should contribute relatively more to the costs of social protection;
e believe more strongly that there is abuse of social security;
8 believe more strongly that people have a certain degree of personal control over the occurrence of social risks.
We furthermore expect that personality traits play a role: motivations to contribute are expectedly lower among those who have a higher general distrust in others, and among those who have a weaker general solidaristic attitude in life. In addition, it can be expected that people's.political preference and their degree of religiousness are important. Those on the political left can be expected to agree more on the motives concerning moral obligation and empathy than those on the right. Socialist and social democratic ideologies adhere more to equality and social protection of vulnerable groups than liberal and conservative ideologies. Christian democrats are expected to be close to the left position in this respect, because of the Christian values of charity and compassion with others. In many surveys political left-right variables account for a large, often even the largest, part of variance in various types of welfare attitudes (Coughlin, 1980; Whiteley, 1981;Taylor-Gooby, 1983; Pap adakis and Bean, 1993; Pettersen, 1995). With regard to religiousness, the variable is frequency of church attendance. Since it is assumed that people who attend church more frequently adhere more to Christian values and norms, they can be expected to be motivated more to contribute to welfare.
Data and methods Data
Our data are from the TISSER-Solidarity study, a national representative survey (N = 1500) among the Dutch public of 16 years and older, carried out in the autumn of 1995. The survey was specifically designed to measure people's opinions, perceptions and attitudes regarding the welfare state in general, and the system of social
security in particular (see van Oorschot, 1998 for a summary of the survey's full results).
Measurement of motives
Respondents of the TISSER-Solidarity stuáy were asked which motives they had for contributing to the Dutch system of social security benefits. Three of the motives mentioned aboýe were operationalised into separate answering categories. The motive of 'accepted authority' could not be operationalised meaningfully, since contributing to social security is a legal obligation for all citizens who have an income. The survey question was:
Paying contributions for social security schemes is a legal obligation. Apart from that people may have other reasons for paying them. How is this in your case? In other words, to what degree do. you agree or disagree with the following statements:
For me, paying contributions for social insurances is a thing I also do because:
a.  It secures me a benefit in case I need one myself
b.  I regard it as a moral duty towards the less well-off in society
c.  I personally empathise with the situation beneficiaries are in
Answering categories: (1) strongly agree (J2) agree (3) neither agree nor disagree (4) disagree (5) strongly disagree
The statements indicate respectively the motives of perceived self-interest, moral convictioiis, mutual affection and identification. In first instance these motives will be analysed bivariately separately. This will be followed by a multivariate analysis for which a scale-variable jis constructed. This scale-variable MOTIVATION combines people's answers to the three statements as follows: (0) no motive mentioned (jie no 'agree' or 'strongly agree' on either of the statements, implying that legal obligation is tne only motive for paying contributions) (1) only
36
Policy & Politics vol 30  no I
'perceived self-interest' mentioned (2) 'perceived self-interest' mentioned, plus either 'moral duty' OR 'mutual identification' (3) 'perceived self-interest' mentioned, plus 'moral duty' and 'mutual identification', as well as those answering 'moral duty' and 'mutual identification' but not 'perceived self-interest' (which latter group is less than 2% of respondents). The scale is not designed to measure whether individuals support social security payments or not (82% do on the basis of a perceived interest and 87% on the basis of any of the motives). Instead, it measures strength and character of support. Higher scores on the MOTIVATION scale imply stronger support for welfare, because it means that people are motivated by more of the various motives. Higher scores also indicate a stronger moral and affectionate base of support, on top of motivations of self-interest. The scale con-elates .40 with 'perceived self-interest', .75 with 'moral obligation' apd .73 with 'affection' (all p<.000).
Explanatory variables
As indicated in the previous section, two distinct sets of relevant variables were available from our data: personal characteristics and a set of opinions, perceptions and attitudes. Their measurement and construction are shown in Box 1.
In a first step the distribution of motives over personal characteristics will be presented for each motive separately. This will show which groups in society are most or least motivated to pay for social security. These bivariate analyses will also give a first idea of the validity of our hypotheses.
In a second step multivariate analyses of the motivation scale are carried out. Attention is not only paid to the direct effects of all explanatory variables |on motivation for welfare support, but also to thb indirect effects of the personal characteristics that might be present through their influence!on opinions, perceptions and attitudes. Therefore an explorative, two-stage LISREL analysis was carried out. In the first stage motivation was regressed on all explanatory variables from both sets, and at the same time all variables of the set of opinions, perceptions and attitudes
were regressed on all variables of the set of personal characteristics. This analysis was repeated in the second stage, but only with those variables included that had shown to have significant effects in the first step.
Results
Why pay for social security?
The survey revealed, first that there is no evidence whatsoever that enforcement would be the only way to motivate the Dutch to pay for social security. On the contrary, a large majority of the Dutch public admit to having other motives than just fulfilling a legal obligation. Most notably, paying for social security is accepted on grounds of a perceived self-interest: no less than 82% of the Dutch willingly contribute since they expect to be dependent upon social security themselves some time in the future. Seemingly, the comprehensive character of the Dutch social security system, with its earnings-related benefits for sick, disabled and unemployed workers, its non-means-tested old age pensions and child benefits, and its housing benefits for renters, is experienced as a profitable institution by nearly the whole of the population. There seems to be no sign here, as in the United States, of a middle class perceiving welfare as being reserved for the poor only (Weir et al, 1988; Kluegel et al, 1995), or of a legitimacy depending on "... loyalties of the numerically weak, and often politically residual, social stratum" as Esping-Andersen (1990) typified the situation in residualist welfare states like the United States and Canada. The relatively strong solidaristic attitude of the Dutch population, which shows up in international comparative studies as well (Stevens and Diederiks, 1995; Hofstede, 1998), is reflected here in the fact that as many as two-thirds of the respondents also claimed to be motivated to pay for social security on moral grounds. That is, that they perceive paying contributions as a moral obligation towards the needy in society. The motive of affection, empathising with the situation of beneficiaries, is least strong, but nevertheless given by as much as 42% of the Dutch. Finally, only very small minorities of between 8% and 14% explicitly disagree (strongly) with having the motives of moral ob-
37
Wim van Oorschot: Individual motives for contributing to welfare benefits in the Netherlands
Äm^Í^^
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
SEX male - female
AGE young to old
EDUCATIONAL LEVEL low - middle - high
INCOME LEVEL gross annual household income, low - middle - high
WELFARE USE not on benefit (exclusive of old age pension), on benefit
OPSNSOMS, PERCEPTIONS and ATTITUDES
INDIVIDUAL EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SECURITY (Lickert-scale, alpha=64, m=2.2, sd=55, negative to positive). Whether one believes that because of social security (a) the life of many people is more pleasant and free (b) the Dutch population at large is happier (c) everybody gets a chance to make something of his or her life
MORAL EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SECURITY (Lickert-scale, alpha=67, m=2.0, sd=.54, negative to positive). Whether one believes that because of social security (a) people get lazy (b) peoples1 sense of self-responsibility decreases (c) people get egoistic and calculating (d) people divorce too easily (e) people do not want to take care of each other any more
SOCIAL EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SECURITY (Lickert-scale, alpha= 67, m=2.2, sd=55, range=I-3, negative to positive). Whether one believes that because of social security (a) societal unrest is prevented (b) large-scale poverty and misery are prevented (c) there is a more just distribution of life chances
ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SECURITY (Lickert-scale, alpha=.65, m=2.0, sd= 55, negative to positive). Whether one believes that because of social security (a) Holland can compete less with other countries (b) labour costs are too high (c) unemployment increases
PREFERRED LEVEL OF BENEFITS (Lickert-scale, alpha=.71, m=3.0, sd=54). Opinion on whether benefit levels should be decreased or increased (unemployment insurance, unemployment assistance)
CONTROL (Lickert-scale, alpha=.63, m=2.J, sd=J7, not at all to absolute). Degree to which one believes that benefit dependency due to unemployment, disability, sickness and being on social assistance is under the control of beneficiaries (degree to which they are to be blamed for it)
EVALUATION OF SYSTEM (Lickert-scale, alpha=.82, m=2.9, sd=.77, negative to positive). Feelings about the system of social security; positive versus negative, badly administered versus well administered, unjust versus just, content versus discontent
ATTITUDE TOWARDS iNCOME SOLIDARITY To what degree one endorses that people with higher incomes pay higher social security contributions (very to not at all)
PERCEPTION OF BENEFIT ADEQUACY (Lickert-scale, alpha= 78, m=3.4,sd=. 59,easy to difficult) Perception of the adequacy of benefit levels for making ends meet (unemployment insurance, unemployment assistance, disability insurance)
38
Policy & Politics vol 30  no I
:lBoX:;:lľ;:SC(ä-liti:hu©Íi
MISUSE OF SYSTEM (Lickert-scale, aipha=.79, m=3.7, sd=.57, low to high) Perception of degree of abuse of social protection (employees stay home sick too easily, many disabled people could work if they wanted to, unemployed are too passive in looking for jobs, beneficiaries work in the black economy)
TRUST IN OTHERS (Lickert-scale, alpha=.65, m=2.8, sd=.51, no to yes) Perception of the social orientation of other people.Whether other peopJe (a) usually promote their self-interest (b) reckon with the interests of others (c) are driven only by the pursuit of money and personal profit (d) are always inclined to help someone
SOLIDARIST1C ATTITUDE (Lickert-scale,aipha= 72, m=2.3, sd= 49, strong to weak). Whether one generally is directed at one's own interests or at the interests of others.Answers to statements (a) solidarity.is nonsense, everybody has to take care of himself (b) in life you have to follow your own plans not bothered by others (c) mostly I put my own interests first instead of those of others (d) I enjoy it doing other people a pleasure (e) if 1 do something for someone else, I want something in return (f) 1 never think of the interests of other people (g) 1 easily get interested on behalf of other people
RELIGIOUSNESS frequency of church attendance
POLITICAL PREFERENCE (which party one would vote for if next week there were to be an election), left to right (Green Left, Socialist Party, Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, progressive liberals, conservative liberals, religious right, extreme right)
ligation and empathy, and only 5-6% has no answer.
Combining the answers in the motivation scale shows that actually only 13% of the Dutch perceive no motivation at all to contribute to social security, apart from being a legal obligation. (In this group people of 25 years or younger are over-represented, while older people, welfare users and the group with highest education are somewhat under-represented.) Moreover, as little as 20% of the Dutch only perceive self-interest as an extra motive (the younger more than the older people;), while two-thirds perceive the motives of moral obligation and/or empathy on top of the motive of self-interest. Clearly, the Dutch system of social security has a strong legitimacy base among the population at large, the strongest foundation lying in perceptions of self-interest, but firmly sustained by considerations of moral obligation and feelings of mutual identification and empathy.
Nevertheless, there are differences in motivations between individuals. The following sections will describe differences between social
groups, and analyse and discuss the factors that directly and indirectly influence individuals' motivations to pay for welfare.
Differences between groups
Table 1 shows, first, that social groups do not differ very much in their motivations to support social security. Only in a few cases the percentages agreeing or disagreeing deviate more than 10% from the overall percentages. This accords with findings in Denmark and Sweden, two other countries with encompassing welfare systems (Aguilar and Gustafsson, 1988; Ploug, 1996). Second, in each and every category the order between the three types of motivation is the same as in the. overall case. That is, in each category the majority of people agree with the motive of self-interest, less with moral obligation, and the least with the motive of empathy. Clearly, a general motivational base for welfare support exists in the Netherlands.
Males tend to be somewhat more motivated than females to pay for social security on grounds
39
Wim van Oorschot: Individual motives for contributing to welfare benefits in the Netherlands
of self-interest and moral obligation, but the difference is not significant. There is no sex difference regarding the motive of empathy. These results contradict the expectations formulated earlier: neither a greater interest in welfare among women nor their alleged stronger adherence to values of caring and mutual responsibility are reflected in our data. Note, however, that only bivariate relations are involved here and that the result might be specific for the Dutch situation, with its low (full-time) labour participation of women. The multivariate analysis will show a deeper understanding of the influence of sex and the other personal characteristics.
Agreeing with the three motives increases with age, indicating that social security benefits have a higher legitimacy among older people than among the young. The motive of self-interest is regarded as less important by the youngest age
lei: Motives to pay for welfare by personal characteristics (% [strongly] agree)
Perceived
self-          Moral
interest    obligation   Empathy
Overall	82	64	42
Sex			
- male	84	65	42
- female	80	63	42
Age	*	*	*
'   - =< 29	75	54	26
- 30-49	84	60	39
- 50-64	84	71	52
->= 65	88	81	65
Educational level		*	*
- low	80	62	42
- middle	82	61	36
- high	86	75	50
Income level			
- low	83	66	50
- middle	81	61	38
- high	82	66	40
Welfare use	*		*
- no	82	63	40
- yes	89	69	53
Notes:
* = significant differences: Chi-square tests, p < .000, N total = 1403
group, while the difference is rather small between the other groups. Age differences are greater with moral obligation and empathy, especially in the latter case. The overall pattern confirms expectations based on an alleged greater personal interest of older people in welfare arrangements and provisions, as well as on a more individualistic value pattern of young people. However, the lesser agreement of the youngest cohort is not proportionally mirrored in their greater disagreement with the three motives. Instead, many of the younger people neither agreeld nor disagreed. This would suggest that they might form clearer opinions on the subject when they grow older, implying that the difference between the younger and older categories is an age effect, not generational difference. As to educational level, it shows that people with the highest educational level (higher professional and university) are most motivated. Although all categories perceive a similar degree of self-interest, the higher educated agree more on motives of moral obligation and empathy, supporting the hypothesis of their higher 'moral consciousness'. The presumed greater 'post-materialism' among the higher educated does not manifest itself in our data. With regard to affection there seems to be a non-linear relation: those with a lower level of education, who might be more close to beneficiaries or have more personal experience witjh benefit dependency, agree more with this motive than the people in the middle of the educational range (but still less than those with a higher education). Quite remarkably, income level does not differentiate as expected. That is, Dutch people with higher incomes are motivated by considerations of self-interest to the same degree as people with lower incomes. The encompassing character of the Dutch welfare state might play a role here. However, the income effect might be suppressed by, for example, educational level. No specific hypotheses were formulated regarding the relation between income and the motives of moral obligation arid empathy. It appears that there are no significant differences, although there is an indication of i a U-shaped relation: middle incomes agree least with these two motives. With regard to welfare use the data show, as expected, that those on benefit agree more with the motives of self-interest and empathy, than others. They also seem
40
Policy & Politics vol 30  no I
to be motivated more by moral obligation, but this difference is not significant. All in all, the differences between welfare users and others are not very large, which might indicate that indeed the Dutch welfare state is 'close' to many, including those who do not depend on benefits themselves.
Factors influencing the strength and character of people's motivations to pay for welfare
To gain a deeper insight into the factors influencing people's motivations to pay for welfare multivariate LISREL-analyses were earned out. The results are presented in Table 2. The total model shows a reasonable fit (GFI > 0.95 and RMSEA < .08: cf Browne and Cudeck, 1993).
Concentrating first on the effects of the set of opinions, perceptions and attitudes, the results show that a solidaristic attitude has the strongest direct effect on motivation (ß=.24). This means that people who generally take the interests of others into consideration, find pleasure in doing something for others and do not believe that everybody should take care of him or herself are more strongly motivated to pay for welfare. Furthermore, a relatively strong influence is exerted by people's perception of the social effects of social security (ß=.14), their perception of dependency control (ß=-.13) and the attitude towards income solidarity (ß=.17). As expected, it is those who believe more strongly that social security prevents societal unrest, large-scale poverty and misery and promotes a just distribution of life chances, who are more motivated. The
Table 2: Direct, indirect and total effects on motivation for welfare support (LSSREL-analysis, maximum likelihood, standardised coefficients of effects significant at p < 0.05;
		Direct
		effects on
	MOTIVATION	
Sex		
male-female		-0.08
Age		
young—old		0.21
Educational level		
low-high]		0.09
Income level		
low-high,		
Welfare use		
no-yes		0.06
Social effect (SE)		0.14
negative-fpositive		
Perception of contrc	l(PC)	
low-high		-0.13
Attitude income solidarity (IS)		
negative-fpositive		0.17
Trust in others (TO)		
low-high:		0.06
Solidaristic attitude	SA)	
low—high		0.24
Political preference (PP)		
Left-Right		-0.06
R square		24%
Effects of personal characteristics on...
SE
PC
IS
TO
SA
Total effect on
PP   MOTIVATION
0.09      -0.06      -0.07       0.06       0.27       0.13
-0.16       0.1 I
0.15
0.26       0.10       0.23        0.08       0.09
0.10
0.06
-0.02 0.30 0.18 -0.02 0.06
6%         8%         6%          1%        10%         2%
Notes: Chi-siquare = 304.59, df = 40, p = 0.0; RMSEA = .07; GFI = 0.97; critical N = 295
Wim van Oorschot: Individual motives for contributing to welfare benefits in the Netherlands
same applies to those who do not tend to blame people on benefit, ie who believe that beneficiaries have little control over their own situation, as well as to those who favour redistribution more, ie who think more positively about the principle that those on higher incomes should pay more for social security. Other direct effects are smaller, but significant. As expected, people with a larger general trust in other people are more motivated, as well as people with a stronger leftist political orientation. This latter result confirms many previous findings on welfare support. Surprisingly, people's beliefs about characteristics of the system of social security as such do not influence their motivation to contribute to it. There is no relation between motivation and how people evaluate the system at large, whether they perceive benefits as adequate or not. There is even no relation with the perceived degree of abuse of the system, nor is there any influence of people's perceptions of the individual, moral and economic effects of social security. The fact that religiousness, measured as church attendance, has no influence is most probably due to an overruling effect of age and educational level, since in the Netherlands, where secularisation is nearly as high as in Denmark and Sweden (Dobbelaere, 1995), mainly older people and those with a lower educational level attend church.
As to the personal characteristics it appears that most bivariately observed relations are confirmed. Older people are more strongly motivated to contribute to social security, especially on moral and empathetic grounds, than younger people (ß=21). People with a higher educational level are more strongly motivated (ß=.Q9), as well as people on benefit (ß=06). And, as in the bivariate case, there is no direct effect from income level. Regarding sex the multivariate analysis shows a significant effect (ß=-.08) in contrast to the bivariate analysis, but the direction is the same: men are more strongly motivated to pay for welfare than women.
The total effect of personal characteristics on motivation for welfare support is different from their direct effect. This is because most of them, with the exception of welfare use only, (also) have an indirect influence via various perceptions, beliefs and attitudes. In the case of sex the total influence (ß=-.02) is smaller than its direct
influence (ß=-.08). The reason is that, although men are more in favour of income solidarity and have a stronger left political orientation - factors increasing their motivation to pay for welfare - they are also less solidaristic generally, háve smaller trust in others, a more negative perception of the social effects of social security, and are more likely to believe that the occurrence of social risks is under people's own control. All these factors reduce their motivation. The net total effect of these opposing factors is that sex has a significant, but rather small overall effect on welfare motivation. The relatively large direct effect of age (ß=.21) is enforced (to ß=.30) by the fact that people in the higher age category believe less that beneficiaries have personal control over their situation, they endorse income solidarity more strongly and they have a more general solidaristic attitude than younger people. In the case of educational level the enforcement is even stronger: the total effect (ß=. 18) is twice the direct effect (ß=.09). People with a higher educational level are more motivated to pay for welfare as such, but also because they perceive the social effects of social security more positively, endorse income solidarity more strongly, have higher trust in others and have a stronger general solidaristic attitude. The total effect is somewhat attenuated by the fact that more highly educated people believe móre strongly that beneficiaries have personal control over their situation. As regards income it appears that there is no direct effect on motivations for welfare support, but there are indirect effects. People with higher incomes are somewhat loss motivated than people with lower incomes (ß=-.02) only because they believe more strongly that benefit dependency is under the control of bén-eficiaries and because they have a more right-wing political preference. Finally, people on benefit do not differ from those not on benefit in the opinions and perceptions included in our analysis. Clearly, in the Netherlands there is no large cultural gap between both categories.
Many people do combine several motivations for contributing to welfare benefits at the same time. No less than two-thirds of our respondents said they were motivated by various combinations of
42
Policy & Politics vol 30  no I
a perceived self-interest, moral obligation and empathy with beneficiaries. It is not only on the basis of self-interest or values that people are willing to support welfare, but in many cases there is a combination (as suggested by Pettersen, 1995), even with a third type of motive, which is empathy and identification with the lot of beneficiaries. More specifically, our data showed that nearly every Dutch citizen (82%) perceives him/ herself to have a personal interest in social security, while nearly two-thirds (64%) feel they have a moral obligation to contribute to welfare and a bit less than half (42%) sympathise with the lot of beneficiaries.
Clearly, the legitimacy of the Dutch social security system seems to rest chiefly on the motive of self-interest. Its encompassing character seems to have generated its own legitimacy, as a profitable institution for all. Although there are no directly comparable data, it can nevertheless be assumed that the situation is similar in other broad welfare states, like the Nordic countries, Germany and France. In countries with a more selective, i or residual, system, like the United States, Canada, Central and Eastern European welfare states, and perhaps also the United Kingdom, one would expect fewer people to be motivated to support social security on the basis of perceived self-interest. Since our data show a positive correlation between the various types of motive, it can further be assumed that in these countries the number of people agreeing with the motives of moral obligation and empathy might also be sm|aller than in the Netherlands. In residual systems the people who usually do not need and use benefits will generally be less 'close', socially as well as culturally, to those who do. Seen like this, one could say that, where a broad welfare státe generates its own legitimacy, a residual welfare state will hinder it. Or, due to popular support levels, it might be as difficult to cut down on a broad welfare state as it is to broaden a residual one. Over the last twenty years the actual experiences in European continental countries and the United States, as specimens of both types, haye demonstrated nothing else. In addition to the fact that so many Dutch perceive social security as profitable for themselves, the moral and empathetic basis for its legitimacy appears to be substantial too. That still more people are motivatedby considerations of self-interest does
in our view not imply that generally 'the value base' of welfare legitimacy is less important than 'the interest base'. Present broad welfare states might have started off only once sufficient levels of 'sameness' (Offe, 1988) and 'a culture of solidarity' (Hinrichs, 1996) were established, while in residual welfare states the feelings of empathy and moral obligations that are derived from 'sameness' and 'solidarity culture' might relatively be much more important to underpin any degree of welfare redistribution to the needy (cfGoodin, 1988).
A second set of conclusions relates to the measurement of motivations. Up till now it has been quite common to deduce motivations from the direct effects that certain 'interest indicators' and 'value indicators' have on people's willingness to contribute to welfare schemes. Our study shows that this can lead to grossly misleading conclusions. In the context of the encompassing Dutch welfare state there is relatively little variance in the degree to which people of various social categories profit from social security. The result is that traditional interest indicators like income, welfare use, sex and educational level usually show only weak correlations, if at all, with welfare preferences of the Dutch. The obvious conclusion would be that considerations of self-interest do not play any significant role. However, our direct measurement shows the opposite, namely that perceived self-interest is the chief motivation for welfare contribution. Furthermore, although in some cases it might be obvious what type of motivation is indicated by a certain variable, in other cases this is much less certain. For instance, how can the finding that older people are more supportive than younger people be understood? Is this because on average they profit more directly from welfare (through healthcare and (pre-)pension schemes)? Are they less individualistic and therefore perceiving a stronger moral obligation? Or do they sympathise more easily with needy people, because of their broader life experience? Our direct measurement shows that all of these interpretations have some validity.
Direct measurement also allows for more accurate analyses of determinants. Our data showed that whether people are more or less strongly motivated to contribute to social security seems to depend more on factors within the person -
43
Wim van Oorschot: Individual motives for contributing to welfare benefits in the Netherlands
such as his or her general level of solidarity with others, trust in others, political belief, general attitude towards welfare redistribution and concern for societal cohesion and order - than on his or her perception of the (fair) workings of the social security system - such as perceived abuse, (preferred) benefit levels and the effects of social security on individuals and the economy. With regard to the total influence of structural variables, the motivation to contribute to welfare appeared to be stronger among men, older people, welfare users and those with the highest educational level. Surprisingly, income level had only a minor and indirect effect on motivation. It is because those with a higher income blame beneficiaries more for their dependent situation than other income groups, and because they have a more rightist political orientation, that on the whole people with higher incomes tend to be a bit less motivated to pay for social security. Surprising too was that those on benefit do not differ much from those not on benefit in motivation to contribute. Both findings confirm that profiting from the social security system is a common experience to nearly all Dutch citizens.
Acknowledgements
The LISREL-analysis for this article has been carried out by John Gelissen of Tilburg University.
References
Abrahamson, P. (1997) 'Combating poverty and social exclusion in Europe', in W. Beck, L. van der Maesen and A. Walker (eds) The social quality of Europe, The Hague/Bristol: Kluwer Law International/The Policy Press.
Aguilar, R. and Gustafsson, B. (1988) 'Public opinion about social assistance in Sweden', European Journal of Political Research, vol 16: 251-76.
Baldwin, P. (1990) The politics of social solidarity: Class bases of the European welfare state 1875-1975, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Beck, U. (1986) Risk society, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Beck, U., Giddens, A. and Lash, C. (1994) Reflexive modernisation, Cambridge: Polity
Press.
Browne, M.W and Cudeck, R. (1993) 'Alternative ways of assessing model fit', in K.A. Bollen and J. Scott Long (eds) Testing structural equation models, Focus Edition 154, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Coughlin, R. (1980) Ideology, public opinioii and welfare policy: Attitudes towards taxes, and spending in industrialized societies, Berkeley, CA: Institute of International Studies.
Crozier, M., Huntington, S. and Watanuki, J. (eds) (1975) The crisis of democracy, New York, NY: New York University Press.
Deitch, C. (1988) 'Sex differences in support for government spending', in C. Mueller (ed) The politics of the gender gap, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
den Dulk, L., van Doorne-Huiskes, A. and Schippers, J. (eds) (1999) Work-family arrangements in Europe, Amsterdam: Thela Thesis.
Dobbelaere, K. (1995) 'Religion in Europe and North America', in R. de Moor (ed) Values in western societies, Tilburg: Tilburg University
Press.
Durkheim, E. ([1893] 1966) The division of labor in society, translated by George Simpson, New York, NY: The Free Press.
Elster, J. (1990) 'Selfishness and altruism', in J. Mansbridge (ed) Beyond self-interest, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press: 44-52^
Erie, S. and Rein, M. (1988) 'Women and the welfare state', in C. Mueller (ed) The politics of the gender gap, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Esping-Anderson, G. (1990) The three worlds of welfare capitalism, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Ferrera, M. (1993) EC citizens and social protection, Pavia: University of Pavia.
Galbraith, J. (1992) The culture of contentment, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
44
Policy & Politics  vol 30  no I
Ganzenboom, H. (1988) Leefstijl en -patronen in Nederland (Living styles and patterns in the Netherlands), Rijswijk: Sociaal Cultureel Planbureau.
Giddens, Ä. (1994) Beyond left and right?, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Goodin, R. (1988) 'Reasons for welfare', in J.D. Moon (ed) Responsibility, rights and welfare, London: Westview Press.
Goodin, R. and Le Grand, J. (1987) Not only the poor: The middle classes and the welfare state, London: Allen and Unwin.
Hasenfeld, Y and Rafferty, J. (1989) 'The determinants of public attitudes toward the welfare state', Social Forces, vol 67, no 4: 1027-48.
Hechter, M. (1987) Principles of group solidarity, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Henderson, A. and Parsons, T. (1964) Max Weber: The theory of social and economic organization, New York, NY: The Free Press.
Hemes, H. (1987) Welfare, state and women power: Essays in state feminism, Oslo: Oslo University Press.
Hinrichs, K. (1996) 'Social insurances and the culture of solidarity: the moral infrastructure of interpersonal redistributions', Paper presented at the ISA RC19 conference 'Comparative research on welfare state reforms', 19-23 August, Canberra.
Hofstede, ;G. (1998) Masculinity and femininity: The taboo dimension of national cultures, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Inglehart, ;R. (1977) The silent revolution: Changing values and political styles among western publics, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Inglehart, R. (1990) Culture shift in advanced society, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kangas, O. (1997) 'Self-interest and the common good: the impact of norms, selfishness and context in social policy opinions', Journal of Socio-economics, vol 26, no 5: 475-94.
Kluegel, J., Mason, D. and Wegener, B. (eds) (1995) Social justice and political change: Public opinion in capitalist and post-communist states, New York, NY: de Gruyter.
Leisering, L. and Leibfried, S. (1998) Time, life and poverty social assistance dynamics in the German welfare state, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lindenberg, S. (1990) 'Homo socio-economicus: the emergence of a general model of man in the social sciences', Journal of Institutional and. Theoretical Economics, no 146: 727-48.
Mansbridge, J. (1990) 'On the relation of altruism and self-interest', in J. Mansbridge (ed) Beyond self-interest, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press: 133-43.
Mayhew, L. (1971) 'Systems of solidarity', in L. Mayhew, Society: Institutions and activity, IL: Glenview Press: 67-92.
Muffels, R., Nelissen, J. and Nuyens, W. (1986) Social security and income inequality: A comparative study, Social Security Studies Series, Tilburg: Tilburg University Press.
Offe, C. (1988) 'Democracy against the welfare state', in J. Moon (ed) Responsibility, rights and welfare, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Papadakis, E. and Bean, C. (1993) 'Popular support for the welfare state: a comparison between institutional regimes', Journal of Public Policy, vol 13, no 3: 227-54.
Parsons, T. (1951) The social system, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Peillon, M. (1995) 'Support for welfare in Ireland: legitimacy and interest', Administration, vol 43, no 3: 3-21.
Pettersen, P. (1995) 'The welfare state: the security dimension', in O. Borre and E. Scarbrough (eds) The scope of government, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pierson, P. (1991) Beyond the welfare state?, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Ploug, N. (1996) 'The welfare state: consistent attitudes in a changing world', Paper presented at the ISA RC 19 Annual Meeting, Canberra, Australia, 19-23 August.
45
Wim van Oorschot: Individual motives for contributing to welfare benefits in the Netherlands
Ringen, S. (1987) The possibility of politics: A study in the political economy of the welfare state, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rose, R. and Peters, B. (1978) Can government go bankrupt?, New York, NY: Basic Books.
SCP (Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau) (1994) Profijt van de overheid III (Profiting from government III), Rijswijk: SCP.
Stevens, F. and Diederiks, J. (1995) 'Health culture in Europe', in G. Lueschen et al, Health systems in the European Union, Muenchen: Oldenburg Verlag.
Svallfors, S. (1989) Vem aelsker Vaelfaerdstaten? (Who wants the welfare state?), Lund: Arid v.
Taylor-Gooby, P. (1983) 'Legitimation deficit, public opinion and the welfare state', Sociology, vol 17: 165-84.
Taylor-Gooby, P. (1999) 'Markets and motives', Journal of Social Policy, vol 28, no 1: 97-114.
Ter Bogt, T. and van Praag, C. (1992) Jongeren op de drempel van de jaren negentig (Young people on the edge of the nineties), Rijswijk: SCP.
van Deth, J. (1984) Politieke waarden (Political values), Amsterdam: CT Press.
van Oorschot, W. (1997) The common good, nearness and dependence: On solidarity and its motives, AWSB Working Papers 97/12.
van Oorschot, W. (1998) Dutch public opinion on social security, CRSP Series, Loughborough: Centre for Research in Social Policy, University of Loughborough.
van Oorschot, W. (1999) 'Work, work, work: labour market policies in the Netherlands 1970-2000', Paper presented at the RC19 annual conference, Prague.
van Oorschot, W. and Komter, A. (1998) 'What is it that ties...? Theoretical perspectives on social bond', Sociale Wetenschappen, no 3:
5-24.
Weir, M., Orloff, A. and Skocpol, T. (1988) The future of social policy in the United States: constraints and possibilities', in M. Weir, A. Orloff and T. Skocpol (eds) The politics of social policy in the United States, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Whiteley, P. (1981) 'Public opinion and the demand for welfare in Britain', Journal of Social Policy, vol 10: 453-76.
Wilensky, H. (1975) The welfare state and equality: Structural and ideological roots of public expenditure, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Zijderveld, A. (1979) 'Het ethos van de verzorgingsstaať (The ethic of the welfare state), Sociale Wetenschappen, vol 22, no 3: 179-203.
Wim van Oorschot
Department of Social Security Studies
Tilburg University, the Netherlands
46